Surprise! It was a Christmas Program.

Today was the Oldest Kidlet’s Christmas Program. For a couple weeks now he’s been singing songs I didn’t quite recognize, and telling me daily about how excited he was that he sang in chapel every day. But he wouldn’t tell me anything about the program itself. “It’s a surprise.”

Right, surprise.

I learned that a classmate of his was a camel. Another was in the Angel Choir. And another was supposed to be a shepherd, but I think she was sick. But really, nothing about what he was doing in it.

As it turns out, he was just singing. But he had a wonderful time doing it. I learned two important things- if it’s drizzling, they’ll open up the chapel early, so it’s best to sit out in the cold rather than killing time in the car if you want to make sure you get seats up front. Also, the Paparazzi outside some hip club have nothing on parents during a preschool Christmas program. As the kids walked in, parents were standing in the aisles to try to tape them and get pictures. The pastor had to tell them a few times to sit down.

I wound up on the wrong side of the chapel, so I spent most of my time looking around some woman’s head to try to see my son. But he sang, did his dances, and smiled the whole time. After everyone returned to the classroom, he looked at me and smiled. “They clapped, Mom! We must have been great.”

I sat next two a family where the son (and brother- they signed his older sisters out of their classes to see him in the program) was one of the wisemen. The oldest one asked me lots of questions. About my Flip camera, about how old my son was, and if he had a part. When I said that he didn’t, she said “Oh, he’s just part of the chorus? Not that it isn’t important. It is. There can’t be parts for everyone.” I tried not to laugh at that. Honestly, I’m relieved that he didn’t have a big part. He’s a bit of a worrier and a perfectionist- so while he’s a ham, he would have been freaking out about it. As it was, he was a little nervous at the idea that people would be watching him. But obviously, once they clapped, he relaxed.

There was one thing that cracked me up. They used existing songs and gave them new lyrics. Most of them were standard kid fare, but one of them was the Ballad of Davy Crockett. I’m not sure what they changed the lyrics because I was hearing “King of the Wild Frontier” when they were singing about Baby Jesus being born here, or something. I’m sure the camera picked up on my giggling. (The girls next to me had no idea about the Davy Crockett song, which makes me sad)

Friday is the preschool Christmas party as well as his last day of school for the calendar year. Is it wrong that I’m dreading having him home for two weeks? You see, every day he isn’t in school, he spends it asking when he CAN go back to school. Seriously! I’ve never seen a kid who loved school this much. Well, since me, at least. But I was a bookworm from the start.

The little one will fall silent again- which is a shame. He’s said some delightfully stuff this week that wasn’t “that’s mine” or “Santa.” I dropped something and he said, “That’s too bad.” He opened the fridge to see that there was no carton in there of his milk and ran to the backdoor (we have another fridge in the garage that’s filled with his milk) and he shouted, “Mommy, want milk! NEEED milk!” And of course, “Zorro, that my food.” Not to mention that he’s started to sing along with all sorts of Christmas songs. If you ever need the last two words of every line in a song sung? He’s your guy.